


Nothing Works Better

by GloriaMundi



Category: House M.D.
Genre: AU, Community: au_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-05
Updated: 2010-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're not in New Jersey any more ... House AU set in Britain's National Health Service.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Works Better

"You should seriously consider moving out to Cheshire," says Wilson to his 10 o'clock patient. "House prices are pretty much static, and the countryside's delightful." He stares past her, out of the window, across the grey estates towards the motorway. Delightful isn't the word.

"What?" says Laura angrily, red-eyed. "You've just told me I've got _cancer_ of the _liver_, and now you're on about the property market? Do I look like the sort of person who wants to spend their last few months arguing with a mortgage advisor?"

They're sitting on the couch, because that puts the patient at ease. It's not an especially comfy couch. Wilson shifts slightly, laying a careful hand on Laura's arm, and keeps his expression smooth and calm and amiable (it's a mask, and it's comfortable) as he tries to explain.

"It's all to do with boundaries. Our local health authority won't pay for the treatment you need, not until your cancer's much more advanced. I don't think you want to go through months of steadily getting worse. But different health authorities have different rules. If you move to somewhere like Knutsford or Alderley Edge, you'd be able to get Nexavar on the NHS. I can write you a letter of recommendation to give to Dr Singh at Macclesfield. And I can put in a good word with a friend of mine who's an estate agent: she might be able to speed things up. Honestly," and how he hates that it's the truth, "it's your best bet."

It's never that easy: it never gets any easier. Wilson sits there, his smile beginning to ache, and talks about mortality rates and clinical trials and pain management. It's almost eleven o'clock before Laura stands up, punching Bonnie's number into her phone, and says, "Thank you, Dr Wilson".

"Do talk to your family about this," says Wilson, looking up from the appointment schedule with the smile he saves for the terminal cases. "And about relocating." Tell them it's temporary, he doesn't say. They both know she isn't going to be living anywhere for much longer.

Finally she's gone, leaving behind a balled-up Kleenex and a lingering scent of Giorgio Red. Wilson has time for about two long, slow breaths before his office door slams open and House, preceded by his cane, barges in.

"It's okay," says Wilson, mildly. "I wasn't busy."

"Saw her leave," concedes House. "You owe me, Wilson."

Wilson raises his eyebrows encouragingly. He hasn't the energy to actually ask.

"Pyrotherapy," says House, sprawling on the couch. He's always so much more comfortable in Wilson's office than Wilson is.

"Is this ..." begins Wilson, then abandons the enquiry. "What?"

"Fifty quid," says House smugly. "Hand it over."

"Oh," says Wilson, trying to remember if he went to the cashpoint this morning. "The malaria thing."

"Worked out how to get it past Cuddy," says House. "Malaria's cheap, right?"

"So's McDonalds. Listen," says Wilson, pinching the bridge of his nose, "pyrotherapy -- artificial fever as a therapeutic tool -- is a hundred years out of date. And they used it for curing syphilis, not superbugs. I know Cuddy's under pressure to cut costs, but that doesn't mean we have to go back to chloroform and public operations."

"Don't knock it: it works," says House. "Or it will. A cure for MRSA! Every health trust in the country -- hell, the _world_ \-- is going to be beating a path to my door."

Our door, Wilson doesn't bother saying. "Speaking of beating," he remarks instead, "what exactly did Cuddy say about it? In her own words, assuming you were listening instead of staring down her cleavage."

House waves a hand dismissively. His eyes are alight. "Refused to let me infect the patient with malaria."

"I'm ... surprised," says Wilson: waits a beat for House's glare, and goes on, "Surprised that you bothered asking. I'm pretty sure that Clinical Excellence thing has something about, oh, two wrongs not making a right?"

"It doesn't mention malaria: I did a search," says House dismissively. "Listen: this is _beautiful_. We took some blood from the patient who lied about going to Africa."

"Before or after you started treating him?"

"I wanted to try him on halofantrine," House digresses, "but apparently we only had enough change down the back of the sofa for doxycycline. Never mind the increased mortality, feel the value!"

"It's the NHS," says Wilson. "Deal with it, or quit and get a job in the private sector."

"Nah," says House. "Poor people get cooler diseases."

Wilson is so not starting on _that_ one. He breathes out. "You took his blood?"

"Yep. Turns out he's O-negative, which just happens to be the same as the patient with MRSA. Tapped him for a pint or two: diluted it with clean blood from the bank."

Wilson just stares at his friend blankly. This is going somewhere, he can tell by House's poorly-restrained glee -- House loves confounding the system, and heaven knows the system deserves it -- but for the life of him he can't work out where.

"Then we diluted it _again_," says House, as encouraging as someone explaining to a developmentally-challenged toddler. (It's the tone he uses on Cuddy when she doesn't have sufficient grounds to actually contradict him.)

Right. Wilson snaps his fingers. "Nothing works better than homeopathy!" he says brightly.

"Got it," says House. "So Cuddy's signed it off as 'homeopathic treatment' -- I made sure Foreman was down as the consultant, I don't want my name smeared with even homeopathic traces of quackery."

Wilson pinches the bridge of his nose. "Amazing," he says levelly. "I happen to know you've been exposed to the concept of ethics at med school, but it's as if there isn't a single molecule left."

"That's why I'm so effective," says House, wide-eyed and sincere.

"I heard the BMA were thinking of dropping homeopathy from their list of funded treatments," says Wilson with remarkable restraint, wondering if there's a way he can prepare a homeopathic solution of Nexavar. House could probably manage it.

"What, and have actual science instead?" House glares at the door as though his x-ray vision can tunnel through to the admin offices. "Drag the NHS screaming and kicking into the twenty-first century? Let's not get ahead of ourselves." He props his chin on his cane and takes a breath, visibly swallowing his savagery. "Anyway: the patient's temp is up to thirty-nine, the MRSA infection's frying tonight, and you owe me fifty quid. And lunch."

Wilson considers, and discards, the notion of reminding House that he still hasn't paid his share of the last quarter's gas bill. "_And_ lunch?"

"Yep. Loser pays."

"Good to know some things don't change," says Wilson.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta **lmeden**: any remaining badness is despite, rather than because of, her input!
> 
> **Notes**:
> 
> **NHS** – the National Health Service, Britain's tax-funded public healthcare system. Yes, [homeopathy is available on, and funded by, the NHS](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/government-ignored-our-advice-on-homeopathic-remedies-say-experts-2041678.html). Yes, the [postcode lottery](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7661082/NHS-doctor-denied-life-extending-cancer-drugs-in-latest-postcode-lottery-case.html) (drug availability dependent on patient's home address) exists.
> 
> **BMA** – British Medical Association, the professional association for doctors in the UK. Does not have as much clout with the NHS as it would like.
> 
> **MRSA** \-- Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. [see Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus)
> 
> I borrowed the Malaria Challenge from _House_ S06E14, [5 to 9](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_to_9). Julius Wagner-Jauregg won the [Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1927]() for his work on using malaria to treat syphilis.


End file.
